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Monday, September 12, 2011

Oh, Sleeper - Children Of Fire - Formal Review

I’ve been listening to Metalcore for a while, Mainstays for
me being the likes of August Burns Red and As I Lay Dying. I’ll have to admit
that I never really listened much to Oh, Sleeper. Son Of The Morning is a good
album, but I have to admit I thought of them more as another Inhale Exhale,
with Haste The Day inspiration. Then out of nowhere comes Children Of Fire. I’ve
listened to this album about 4 times now, and each time it gets better. To use
a word I use a little too often, It’s Awesome.

Children Of Fire starts with an intense snare smash and a hauntingly
unsettling guitar part. For a good minute we are barraged with screams, heavy
riffs, gang vocals, and epic drums, only breaking for a few seconds, until we
are back into the onslaught. A great start to an album in my opinion.

Without rest we start the second track, 'Shed Your Soul'. It
slowly changes, taking inspiration from faster Underoath songs, and eventually
the vocals break into a Josh Scogin-esque ‘rant’ of sorts, which is fantastic
and we get to see a few times throughout the album.

'Hush Yael' breaks the pattern by starting out acoustic with
clean vocals, it’s a nice bit that gets interrupted by another welcomed barrage
that then leads into an epic chorus. It keeps up the intensity throughout
breaking for another well placed acoustic/clean vocals section before finishing
with another wall of riffs, drums, and vocals.

'The Conscience Speaks', also starts out calm, but retains the
albums haunting atmosphere. It’s short lived and clean throughout, but it’s somewhat
of a highlight for me on this album, it’s well placed and gives the album added
depth.

'Dealers Of Fame' is also on the shorter end of things, it’s a
similar feel to the heavy tracks on this album, but it’s not particularly a
standout track. But it’s also not a ‘skip’ track.

Means To Believe is in the same vein as 'The Conscience
Speaks', although it’s a full track. The song feels like it’s leading up to
something, which in a way it is seeing as the next song starts out with a snare
slam and a vocal bombardment.

The album as a whole has this awesome atmosphere largely in
part from the powerful combination of intensely fast guitar work, drums, and
almost scathing (in the best possible way, similar to The Chariot) vocals
juxtaposed to the nicely placed clean songs.

'The Family Ruin' is a pretty standout track, it carries over
the atmosphere, but then amplifies it by adding a sense of epicness through the
drums slow heavy arena sound and the somewhat compressed vocals. There’s also a
small electric piano playing constantly throughout which gives it a creepy feel
as well.

The album leaves us with an tremendous wall of sound, and
the lyric Ignite the World will definitely be stuck in your head. This song
ends with a long note that wraps up the overall atmosphere and leaves room to
let the album restart and keep you listening. It’s fantastic.

If you enjoyed Son Of The Morning, or When I Am God you’ll thoroughly
enjoy this album. Oh, Sleeper has easily released their best work with this
album, and this is likely to be on top of many best metalcore albums lists for
this year. It’s definitely giving Dead Throne and Leveler a run for it’s money.